There is no time to relax for the undefeated Madison Maverick Varsity Football Team as their season schedule does not get any easer after their Thursday Night victory over Seguin at the AlamoDome. The Mavs will travel across 1604 to Farris stadium on Friday September 8, 2006 to take on the 1-0 O’Connor Panthers. The Panthers, a 2005 Playoff team will be playing their Home opener and looking to go 2-0 to start the season. O’Connor has built itself a nice program under Head Coach Danny Padron, and has made the playoffs the last couple of years. Last years team made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs before being defeated. O’Connor will bring a very disciplined balanced attack on both sides of ball to the game, just as they have done for the past couple of years. We got a chance to watch the panthers play Reagan this past week and win 27-7 in impressive fashion.

Panther Offence: O’Connor does not bring blazing speed to the field when they have the ball; instead they play a physical style of strait forward running mixed in with enough passing to keep you honest. When running the ball they will come right at the defense and try to punish tacklers that get in their way. There running backs wont break off 60 yard TD runs but run smart and hit the holes quickly to gain 5-10 yards a carry. The Panthers will start TJ Horney at tail back, but will split him out wide and might even let him throw the ball as he played some QB as a Soph and some as a Jr. Horney is a smart ball runner and won’t make many mistakes. When Horney is not in the back field the Panthers don’t loose much with back up Junior Aaron Casanova.

If there was a question of why Horney would not go back to QB before the year started, those questions were laid to rest with the performance and emergence of Jr QB Bruno Reno. Reno is not a big threat to run the ball but made some nice throws against Reagan and has a decent arm.

O’Connor is notorious for spreading the ball around to deferent receivers and this year’s team looks no different. Lucky Muhlemann is more than likely the fastest guy on the field for O’Connor but what will impress you about this 5’8” 150lb WR is he has great hands and catches everything thrown his way. O’Connor will run several plays to get the ball to the FB in the flat or to the TE across the middle. When these guys get the ball they seem to thrive on running over and thru DBs on their way up field.

O’Connor will not be flashy on offence but they will try to be effective when they have the ball. Watch for the panthers to try and get the ball in Horney’s hands as much as possible during the contest.

Panther Defense: O’Connor’s defense, like the offence, does not bring a lot of speed to the table instead they will do everything they can to contain and execute assignments. The last thing the panthers want is for speed running backs to get to the outside so they will try and keep everything and everybody inside the numbers and in front of them. Reagan had some success bouncing runs outside or running sweeps to the sidelines. O’Connor’s D-Line is big and will plug up the middle; the strength of the defense is the Line backers lead by Senior Eric Gentry. The panther’s defense likes to make the big hit and meet RBs in the hole to stand them up. Once they have a running back slowed down the defense swarms to the ball. They are all very disciplined and covered the screen and trick plays nicely against the Rattlers.

Panther Special Teams: The Panthers have an average special teams unit. Against Reagan they short kicked kick offs to keep the ball out of the hands of the speed guys in the back. They covered well on punt coverage and did a decent job on kick coverage. Lucky Muhleman will return punts and kickoffs and has good vision in the open field. The panthers Field Goal kicker and Punter are a little inconsistent but above average for high School kickers.

Panther Coaches and Extras: Danny Padron is one of the best in the area at recognizing his team’s strengths and weaknesses and adapting his playbook to give his kids the best shot at winning. He does not ask his kids to be something they are not and he gets the most out of his team. They are always well disciplined. The key to O’Connor’s game will be the clock and time of possession. They will, as they did against Reagan, try and keep the opposing offence on the sideline and will try to run twice as many plays as their opponent limiting their opportunities. The last time these two teams met was last year at Farris stadium, Madison and O’Connor got in a slug fest and went back an forth before Madison DL Eddie Pitts fell on a fumble late in the game sealing the Mavs victory. This year’s match up should be just as exciting.

The Madison Offence is the unit that usually gets all the love and praise after a football game, and this year might turn out that way, but in Thursday’s season opener the Defense stepped up to deliver the victory. Madison entered the game in what looked to be a difficult situation as some felt the talent on the other side of the ball was going to be too much for Madison to overcome. But the Mavs proved that team work and a swarming defense can make the victories seem like they come easy.

Madison’s offence would not produce a bunch of the long quick scores that we are accustomed to seeing in years past but would effectively produce the points needed to pull out the victory. The Mavs would start the game with out the services of highly touted running back Devin Thomas but would have several players step up to fill the void.

One player to make a name for himself during the course of the game was junior wide out Chris Powel, so much so that he would be presented with the most valuable player award at the end of the contest. Powel would pick up 142 yards on 4 catches and a nifty 65+ yard TD reception in the 2nd quarter. Madison would use two QB’s during the game and both would prove to be productive. Matt Towne would start the game at Qb and would complete 3 of 5 passes for 100 yards including the quick slant to Powel for the long score. Devin Myler would break Towne through out the game and would also go 3 of 5 passing. Myler would have a key run late in the game on third down deep in Seguin’s territory that would set up the final score.

Names like Powel, Towne, and Myler are names you will read about through out the year, but the true hero’s on the offensive side of the ball on Thursday night was the line. Probably one of the most experienced lines Madison has had to start a season; they gave the QBs time to throw and gave the RBs holes to dart through all night long. Seguin’s defense was touted as one of the best in the area with several kids already receiving scholarship offers from D-I schools at the next level. The Mavs may not face a defense this good for some time but the offensive line showed Thursday why they are the strength of the 2006 Team.

While the offensive line was impressive the Madison Defensive was dominate. Seguin’s star running Back Isaiah Sneed could only muster 18 yards on 13 carries, and Seguin who tried their best to establish the running game could not get much past the line of scrimmage all night long. The Madison DBs held there own against some highly touted WRs as the matadors scattered 150 yards passing though out the game; but the most impressive stat on the defensive side of the ball was the score. Holding Seguin to just 11 points, recovering 2 fumbles and recording an interception, the defense made a statement and did not make many mistakes through out the game.

After dropping their first District match on Tuesday night to Smithson Valley, the Mavs could have entered the Seguin Tourney with their heads down and licking their wounds, but Coach Little had the Mavs ready to play as they entered Pool play on Friday.

Madison entered the Tourney with a record of 4-7; two of those losses were at the hands of Boerne and another was against district rival Judson in the New Braunfels Tourney. The Mavs would have the opportunity for some pay back on Friday as both Boerne and Judson were in the Madison Pool. Madison would get their first chance for revenge early Friday morning as they took on Boerne. In their two previous meetings this year Madison could not even muster a set win as Boerne had swept Madison both times in strait sets. On Friday Madison turned up the heat on the Hounds and showed they had come along way in just a few weeks taking Boerne to three games and just a couple of points from a Maverick victory.

With the momentum of their first match against Boerne Madison would face Judson. Judson had beaten Madison a week earlier in the New Braunfels Tourney and this time the Mavs would return the favor. It would again take three sets but the Lady Mavs would pull off the upset with a 25-18, 18-25, 25-16 victory. Madison would hang tough in their third match but could not get past the State #1 ranked and two time defending State 2A Champ Poth Pirates, losing 25-21, 26-24. Madison would finish off the day 2-2 as they would beat up on Stevens in the last match of the day by a score of 25-10, 25-11.

Madison entered Saturday with a nice record of 6-9 and 2-1 in district 26-5A play. Madison would be slotted in the Sliver division and would first have to take on another District 26-5A rival Roosevelt. The Mavs would catch Roosevelt flat footed and defeat the Rough Riders 25-16, 25-14 in the Semifinal match. The finals would pit the Mavs vs host school Seguin. Madison would make quick work out of the Matadors with a strait set championship victory 25-16, 25-22. Congratulations to the Lady Mavs as they win their first trophy of the Volleyball season.

Saturdays matches conclude the varsity tournament schedule for the Madison Volleyball squad and the Mavs can now concentrate on their run through district 26-5A. They will have their hands full this week as they get the State #1 ranked 5A squad in Reagan on Tuesday night at Littleton Gym at 7:15pm. They conclude their week with a rare home appearance at Madison’s Gym against Judson. Both of these matches will be important for Madison as they try to make the playoffs coming out of district 26-5A.GO MAVS!

Fall Tennis has started up and the Mavs are poised to make a nice run thru District 26-5A. The NEISD has upgraded their Tennis Facility at Blossom making it a bit more fan friendly and one of the nicest facilities in the area.

Long hours of running in the Texas Heat and South Texas humidity start to pay off in the fall for the James Madison Maverick Cross Country Team. As the Saturday mornings get cooler the cross country team gets closer and closer to the district meet. All of the meets between now and District, on October 28th, are great ways for the Mavs to measure themselves against the other local and regional runners in the area. This years schedule has some highlight races including the ever popular Matador Invitational in Seguin and a Trip in Early October to Round Rock where the entire team will get a chance to run the State meet coarse. The most important race of the year for all of the Madison runners is the District Meet where the top two teams and top 10 finishers move on to the Regional meet the next week at UTSA. Madison is in a traditionally rich district of Cross country Teams with Reagan and Judson being the top programs from last year.

This past weekend the Mavs competed in Austin at the prestigious Austin ISD meet the Boys team finished in 12 place and the girls Varsity team matched the boys with a 12th place finish of their own.